


afterstory

by darksylvir



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Mikorei Week 2015, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, vague mentions of anxiety, vague mentions of character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 14:12:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8375275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darksylvir/pseuds/darksylvir
Summary: Second chances don't come easy, even when destiny plays a hand.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for MikoRei Week 2016, Day 7 - Reunion. Hope you enjoy!

Everyone knows that Munakata Reisi’s soulmark lies underneath those fine leather gloves he always wears. Something on his hands, deemed too intimate for display.

Far fewer people know where Suoh Mikoto is marked. Not where the rest of the world can see, for sure—his cycle of campus jobs have him in and out of various dress codes, none of which give any sort of hint. Some have even posited he’s Markless, to which Totsuka—who is—shook his head with a knowing smile.

“Oh, King has one. No mistaking it.”

A few drinks in, and Kusanagi will back up the claim. But no matter how many shots follow, he won’t give up anything else.

Awashima is much the same when the questions come to her. The air around her frosts, and her replies are short. “Munakata- _senpai_ ’s soulmark is his business. You are sorely mistaken if you think I’d indulge your curiosity at the cost of his right to privacy.”

 _Back. Off—_ in so many words. Fushimi is worse. No one’s asked him since the first overly-interested party ended up with some very _personal_ pictures winding up in a semi-public place, along with an implicit promise that further steps could be taken.

If those two have anything in common, it’d be the strange loyalty of their friends.

Besides that, there isn’t much. Most never even think of them in the same passing—only a vague awareness that their social circles overlap. Even that’s recent development, starting with Awashima’s entrance to the university and the sudden morphing of her and Kusanagi’s soulmarks into their final, permanent iteration—right in the middle of a _kendo_ sparring match, too. No one more surprised than the two of them, apparently; they’d never met before. But that’s the nature of the soulmarks: sudden couples taking their time to adjust, time wherein their worlds begin to intertwine.

Like the sudden blooms of gold along the pale, ice blue whorls lacing down her neck. Like the soft wreaths of sky-colored smoke curling through the fire flickers along his.

Totsuka takes a picture, adds it to the collage he’ll send to back to Anna when it gets too full of life. Kusanagi and Suoh are favorite subjects, of course, and the loose, wild crowd they run with. But as the months tick by, here is Awashima, moving in from the edges—she wears her hair up more often, unflinching in the face of her circumstances. Fushimi, by contrast, is never more than a stray body part or flap of clothing leaping out of frame. And there, on the vague borders of parties and study sessions, Munakata’s profile sometimes makes an appearance. Rarely do you find Suoh in the same shot.

But this isn’t strange—having certain best friends wind up as soulmates doesn’t guarantee any deepening of a connection that’s tenuous at best. Munakata Reisi is on a pre-med track, his time spent in lab or in library or on the board of several campus clubs and organizations. Suoh Mikoto is studying—something. Being a student is a requirement to hold half the jobs he’s got: swiping cards in the gym, shelving in the library, stints in the arboretum, simultaneously the world’s laziest and most intimidating TA. But between those and his shifts in various campus cafes and bistros, it’s up in the air whether he actually attends any classes whatsoever.

That said, their paths must cross—but never for very long. And it’s all so commonplace, so perfectly dismissable, one can’t help but wonder if—

 

_One too-late night in the library, he wakes to Suoh’s hand on his shoulder. It stays just long enough to rouse him, and he spares him approximately three words before he’s gone. But one self-service station is still running to check out the books he needs, and the lights in the entrance hall are bright as they always are. The library locks up fifteen minutes after it is supposed to, but he walks home alone._

_He’s got one hell of a tolerance, thanks to Izumo–but then there are things like the fucking Galvatron challenge and he can’t leave the bathroom for the rest of the night. There, at the worst of it—Munakata’s slim fingers net his hair back, leather cool against his skin. He flushes the mess without a word, drops three water bottles into the bathtub, and walks out. Each time he comes back feels like it’s gonna be the last–only the night ends with the prick leaning on the sink beside him, phone in hand. Completely ignoring him but—there._

_Bags of coffee beans start appearing at his door. It is risky, perhaps, to take them in, but it is also midterms. Later there are sealed cups of boba tea, vaguely stale pastries, an almost full tin of matcha. Very late nights will sometimes find take-out bags stapled closed, styrofoam boxes from the cafeteria sealed with plastic wrap. The fact that the offerings are left undisturbed long enough for him to collect them give some idea of who is doing the leaving._

_Isn’t that he can’t keep up with the readings, but he’s better with voices–that and he can bring recordings on the job easier than a textbook. Totsuka usually does them for him, since he’s got the most time to spare; Izumo, sometimes, for the classes they share. So when he hits play, he’s not exactly expecting Sei Shonagon’s lines to flow out in a deep, measured tone that’s all too familiar. Not expecting it, yeah, but not complaining. The shift manager’s been on him for not smiling enough—today when she pulls him aside, it’s for not being able to stop. “Really, you’re creeping me out. You ok?”_

_It’s glances across rooms, subtle interventions. It’s the occasional joint beer run, the last two to go out or the last to come inside._

_It’s one light and shared cigarettes._

_It’s—_

A prelude. Every gesture, every moment, a prelude to this: Suoh Mikoto’s mouth on his in a stranger’s empty room, Suoh Mikoto’s body against his against the wall, Suoh Mikoto’s pulse pounding through him heavier than the beat and the liquor and the entirety of the world.

_Come upstairs._

And he had. And he’d known. For far too long he’d known and prepared for an inevitable denial. All the proper words—he has them still, fragments rising through the flood of sensation, inexplicable.

_I cannot—my hands—_

Rebel, against any modicum of tattered control. They’re hungry for the heat of him, for skin to sear through the thin barriers of cloth and leather. Too much—the oxygen burns out between their lips and they break.

Never for very long.

This: Suoh Mikoto’s mouth drawing the line of his jaw as sharply as his textbook illustrations, lashing words to the rush of his blood. “Reisi, let me—”

“Are we—” His breathing trips over teeth and tongue. “Are we so familiar?”

A thoughtless thing to say, but here they all are. He feels a smile form against the hollow of his clavicle. “Touch me, Munakata.”

He shouldn’t. His marks have not changed for him, they are not— _he shouldn’t._ But still he is following Suoh to a stranger’s bed, watching him sink onto the edge, watching him take hold of an unresisting wrist. He is watching the glove come off far more easily than it should. He is watching—

_I’ve worn blood on my hands for as long as I can remember._

Even here, he knows that’s not quite right—literal blood it is not. A hyperactive melanin pigmentation, unique to each individual—one that paints the fingers of his right hand a dark, mottled red and spatters crimson on his palms. A disquieting resemblance, nothing more. A touch lurid, in their dark.

Suoh’s grip twitches, but stays. “So, that’s it.”

He’d had words for this too, tries to sort them, except: Suoh Mikoto’s mouth pressed against his knuckles, where the color goes dark as a bruise. And Reisi cannot—if this world tells them he is meant for another, he cannot in this moment fathom how.

And somehow both his hands are bare, boundless, starving for touch. They press Suoh to the bed, and he lets them, steadies their clumsy exploration. This is unlike him, unlike either of them. _God_. Reisi has never needed that word except here, now—Suoh shuddering beneath his uncertain hands.  _God._

He goes to undo the buttons of that thin black shirt, before his fingers forget themselves completely. A grip closes again around his wrists; he doesn’t have to wonder why. An echo resounds— _so, there it is._

Had he had more presence of mind, he would speak of irony, of fairness. But here, with his hands as raw as the look in those golden eyes, all he can mean is this: “Whatever it is, it will not matter–not now.”

The gold flickers; the hold goes loose. Reisi still takes his time, despite himself–the cloth parts before him, slow-motion inches of unmarked skin until—

_Red._

His breath stops.

_Red._

His heart—

_Red._

His—

_RED._

He’s bent over a stranger’s sink. The water’s running clear bile down the drain, and under the lights he remembers—it’s not _blood_. His fingers clench against the cheap porcelain, their color unrelenting.  _It’s not—_

_It was. On his hands, in the snow. So much of it, from so small a wound—spilling hot enough to brand, to burn._

_This life, and the next._

His stomach heaves again. There’s no aura, no sanctum to protect him from the tide of memory. Nothing to brace him. The water runs. He looks up at himself in the mirror.

Suoh is in the doorway. His shirt is closed over—that. But Reisi can still see it—the shape of his death. On his skin. On his _hands._

“Did you know?”

No reply. That is telling enough. He drops his head. He cannot stand to look.

“Leave me.”

The faucet runs, countless minutes before he can stomach his mark long enough to turn it off. When he lifts his eyes, Suoh is gone.

 

No one can say that the distance is any different—no one but the few who know. So when Munakata Reisi is absent from the next impromptu get-together and the one after, it’s not that remarkable. Finals are coming up, deadlines and projects looming on the horizon. Even behind that impression of acute academic perfection, he still must feel the pressure.

Everyone cuts him a wide berth.

That Suoh Mikoto does too is unsurprising.

 

_Totsuka comes out to the balcony while he’s smoking, and that’s something; normally he can’t stand the smell. He leans back against the rails, tilts those knowing eyes up at him. “So, the dreams did mean something.”_

_Something. Wish they didn’t._

_“Well, we live in a world where you’re matched up with someone through a magical shapeshifting birthmark—guess precognitive visions aren’t that unbelievable.” Quick fingers dart off with the lit cigarette, flip it down to the darkness below. “Maybe you can start looking to the future now, King.”_

_Totsuka—he can’t even be mad. Not at him, anyways. “Mark hasn’t changed.”_

_His friend hums, warm and tuneless, bumping his head gently against his shoulder. “Beginnings take longer than endings. You and Kusanagi-san, you and Anna-chan, you and me. And if your dreams are right, you never made any of us stab you.” The next nudge hits harder. “It’s going to take more than a half-hour makeout session in my room to fix that.”_

_Shit. He closes his eyes. “Sorry.”_

_“Oh Mikoto.” Totsuka sighs. “You don’t owe that to me.”_

_Fushimi-kun shows up at his door near midnight, no less that ten thermoses of coffee packed in his bookbag—in quite dangerous proximity to his laptop and assorted research materials, too. When Reisi points this out, he huffs and begins slamming the containers unceremoniously into his fridge._

_“Akiyama brewed too much. I told him I wanted to stay awake, but somehow he thinks heart palpitations are part of the damn bargain.” He shoves the last thermos into Reisi’s hands. “Here. You’re going to need it.”_

_Their majors cross little more than tangentially, but Fushimi-kun is stubborn enough to dismiss any difference—soon his papers commandeer the grand majority of the floor, confining Reisi to the island of his desk. Despite that, he makes a stellar study partner._

_“If I still don’t get it, then you don’t either. Explain.”_

_If a touch abrasive. Still, Reisi thinks of nothing beyond academics for the rest of the night—and that is boon enough._

_“Talk to him,” Izumo says, shortly. “Before it gets worse.”_

_The chore wheel puts him on dish duty, which puts him in a shitty mood. Good, because Mikoto’s got one to match—fresh off overtime, nothing but dark circles and general aching to show for it. “If Awashima’s got a problem with me—”_

_“How about if it’s mine?” He looks ready to scrub the finish off whatever plates they’ve got left. “That’s the thing about soulmates–they share things.”_

_“Guess you’re the expert, then.”_

_“Might as well be since you won’t just—” He stops, sighs, cranks on the tap. For a moment Mikoto’s back in the doorway, watching Munakata fall apart—and Izumo sees right through. “Yeah, Seri is worried. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to feel it too. Especially when you’re like—this.”_

_One half-hearted motion, spraying soapy water on the countertop. Mikoto’s wiping it down on reflex before the irritation catches up with him, and by then—well, there’s nothing else he can say._

_Texts from Awashima-kun slowly inundate his inbox. Small, everyday concerns._

_‘Did you remember to eat?’_

_‘Here are the notes from Professor Zenjoh’s lecture.’_

_‘The forecast is predicting rain today. Please wear a proper jacket.’_

_‘Club order for shinai came in. All seems to be in order.’_

_‘Don’t rely too much on Fushimi-kun’s coffee. Akiyama-san is experimenting with brews again.’_

_‘You seemed quite pale today—is everything alright?’_

_‘Are you alright?’_

_That last one underscores each message that precedes it—but he does not mind. It is her nature after all, and he considers himself lucky to be subjected to her dauntless concern. Such loyalty is a rare, precious thing._

_The disappointment he feels when the message tone displays her name, then, is beyond irrational. He should be ashamed._

_If only that was all there was._

It is too long before there’s a knock at his door. They both know it.

Still, Reisi will open up, and Mikoto will wait out the dragging seconds it takes to let him in. The small room becomes tighter, and neither will think to sit.

Finally, “How long have you known?”

He’s wearing his gloves again, even when there’s no one else around. No one but him, and he can’t ask anything from him—not anymore.

“I’ve had dreams, since I was a kid.” Here is where the eyebrows go up, the smirks start—only that face stays still as the dead air around them. “There’s a sword coming down, nothing I can do to stop it. Then I feel it. Here.”

No need to point out where. Hands twitch. “Feel what, exactly?”

Question takes him back to calm little rooms, concerned figures with soft voices—some wore glasses, just like his. “Pain. That’s all.”

They’d write it off to his parents—psychosomatic, reaction to the unconventional appearance of his soulmark. He stopped telling people about it. Somewhere he knows that Munakata’s done parts of the same—which is why it ticks him off when he crosses his arm, picks up that detached tone. “Thank you for that enlightening journey through your childhood eccentricities, but as that has _nothing_ to do with my—”

“Changed, after you.” Anger won’t help him here–truth might. “Thought it might just be that annoying face of yours, sticking around—but then every night, there was more of it. And always you.”

 _Don’t ask me how. Don’t_. But his fingers clench. He must remember, by now. “You never thought to tell me?”

Mikoto snorts. “I know how it sounds.”

“Regardless, if you had any fraction of _sense—_ ”

“Look, either you didn’t know shit and I’d come off looking crazy—” He stops, pushes a hand through his hair. “Or you had them too. And I’d be the worst.”

Munakata looks at him, not a shift or sign to be found. Better than that blown-open sorrow, though—in the snow, before the fall. Anything is.

“And yet,” he says, each word clipped. “You persisted.”

He didn’t have an explanation for that. For any of it. Only the selfish impulse that one glance, one passing, one haphazard night was worth more than a lifetime of almosts. But if his dreams were right, then he’d always been shit at weighing the costs.

And in the end, Munakata’d pay for it.

“Your—mark.” Sounds calmer, now, or just tired enough to stretch space between his words. “Has it at all changed?”

He’s looked every morning, every night—same dark scar, same bright spill. But he doesn’t have to admit it, and he’d never even know, he’d never— “No.”

“Neither has mine.” He tilts his chin up, looking down—always did like that. “Even if we entertain the truth of these—visions, the fact that neither of our soulmarks is reacting in the conventional fashion makes it evident that, whatever the coincidental similarities may be, we are not predestined.”

He sounds like a textbook. And like a lie—there with his arms folded and his shoulders set, gloves dark against his skin. Leaving would be the easiest thing to do. This time, this place, there wouldn’t be scars. This time, this place—

“I don’t care.”

Munakata blinks. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t _care_ ,” he says, maybe slowly enough to be an insult. “If it doesn’t change. I know it’s you.”

He doesn’t, really. Even in this world, with destiny written on your skin, nothing’s for certain. Markless, like Totsuka. Damaged, like them. Munakata pinches the bridge of his nose, nudging his glasses askew. So human it hurts. “Suoh, you cannot—”

“I did this. I saw—I see it, in your face. Every night.” _Beginnings are harder than endings._ He steps in, closer. “Just—let me put it right.”

Selfish. Munakata lets his arms drop, defeated as that day in the snow—a lifetime too far back to understand, wearing through. “I do not think you can.”

He kisses him, anyways, soft and distant. Nothing like the first night, but they’d no right to that. The gloves stay on; his shirt, untouched.

A cold kind of promise, but more than he deserves.

 

That is how it starts, then. A hot topic on campus, for a time, welcome distraction from grades being posted and the registration scramble. Not like other couples, suddenly eager to show off their new status—Munakata Reisi still wears his gloves, Suoh Mikoto remains inscrutable. Together, their mystery compounds.

The rumor mill turns, shortly, with conjectures easily pulled up and discarded: their marks are disfigured, their marks are incompatible, their marks are subject to the binding rules of some sort of secret cult.

Or, this: nothing’s going on at all.

It would be hard to tell. Their lives go on separate tracks that run only somewhat parallel—there’s not much to be said about brief walks in each other’s company, the occasional lunch, sharing a table in the library. No one’s seen them up to anything more.

When asked, Totsuka will smile and sprout lines from whatever Shakespeare drama he’s on that week. Awashima and Kusanagi have their own issues to worry about, thank you. Fushimi retains his imperviousness to discourse with a single tongue-click.

But then it’s the new year, and suddenly there’s too much on anyone’s plate to care.

And good, because something like this—

 

_The first time they try, the panic comes back. Reisi closes his eyes and turns to the wall; Mikoto stays seated on the cold edge of the mattress, till he feels a hand cover his own. The gloves are on. He can’t blame him._

_In a world where a soul on skin dictates coupling, one would think there would be more research on what exactly constitutes the concept of a soulmate and the nature of such a bond. Yet there is little, beyond anecdote, that speaks to other dimensions of knowledge—prophetic dreams are easily dismissed, theories of reincarnation and karma gently deconstructed. His undergraduate research advisor eyes his bibliography. “Some of these sources—Munakata-kun, are you quite sure you have your thesis on track?”_

_Reisi apologizes for the distraction._

_His hands burn._

_The dreams don’t come as often anymore—guess they’re satisfied. But when they do, it’s always the same sequence–that face, the blade, and then—_

_Reisi is all around him, warm against the cutting cold. Every last piece of strength, to pull him closer. He wants this, he wants—_

_The hands twist._

_Always, the last thing Mikoto feels is regret._

_It is possible to train revulsion, like a wayward pet. Reisi used to think such offbeat metaphor was beyond him. But then, his mind goes all sorts of places when Suoh’s hands are upon him._

_For blessed moments, he can lose himself—the heat on his neck, the friction on his thigh, the breathless pressure that muddies his thoughts—but then coming back is inevitable. Red on the edge of his vision and he shudders into reciting numbers, lines in his head; to looking at the wall, the ceiling, anywhere but Suoh’s skin, Suoh’s face. He cannot afford to._

_This is not how you should love someone._

_There is no other way._

_A bad night:_

_“Has it occurred to you that perhaps our paths were never meant to cross again?” His familiarity with the wall is a quiet sort of devastating._

_Suoh disconnected the smoke alarm months ago. There’s anger on the drag, sorrow in the ash. “Not like I had much choice.”_

_“…nor did I.”_

_If there is some fated thing between Awashima-kun and her soulmate, she does not speak of it. Then again, she has always been thoroughly determined to take her life in her own hands, shape it to her design. Reisi finds he quite admires that._

_“So, they haven’t changed.” She’s well used to his soulmark, having been the first individual to see it outside of his immediate family. After a cursory glance, she goes back to mending her torn kote. “Do you believe they will, senpai?”_

_Direct, as she was in his bedroom, so long ago—one study session put aside to test a budding rumor. She hadn’t flinched when he’d taken off his gloves, rested his stained fingers on her blue cheek. Nothing changed then, and they’d gone back to their books._

_“I would hope so,” he says, tries to measure out jest instead of some nameless frustration. “If I am doomed to incompatibility, I rather prefer it might have been with you.”_

_She smiles, as few would. “It will be worth the wait, senpai. Trust me.”_

_She is not one to speak of her doubts, either._

_Mikoto’s starting to get familiar with the psych branch of the library. He knows which call numbers translate to trauma, anxiety, PTSD in its varied forms. Not sure if any of that is useful, but it’s all he’s got to understand._

_They aren’t what they once were, but apparently they’ve still got to suffer for it._

_If Munakata’s doing anything on his end, he hadn’t let him in on it. Wouldn’t count on it, the way he tenses each time a kiss starts moving into more—he can be flush and hard and wanting, but something in him’s set to run. Mikoto could catalog a hundred ways apology can wear a body—none of it’s enough._

_Each time he sees his mark, bright and bloody same in the mirror—each time it guts him that maybe nothing will be._

_There are moments, though, when he can forget._

_Suoh works himself to exhaustion far too often, as if he’s making up for some distant lifetime of inaction. Reisi could appreciate such enterprise, if he weren’t so often witness to its side effects. Like here, in his room, with some critical test on the horizon—he has an open book in his hand, and Suoh dead to the world in his lap._

_He should wake him._

_He should, but he won’t. Instead he will shed his gloves, run the hue of his fingers against the fire of that unruly hair. Carmine and old crimson tangled upon scarlet, rose—once he’d memorized a catalogue of color names, if only to describe his soulmark in words other than blood._

_Here, in the stillness, perhaps he can bring himself to believe in euphemism._

_The mark does not shift, but he expects nothing. The colors simply come together, sparking an affection that feels both foreign and addictive. Perhaps they had not had these small intimacies—if that last memory is true, then there would be no place for them. Perhaps that is why—_

_But thinking breeds the sickness, so he will not do that either. Instead he’ll memorize a subject that is not his, savor the simplicity of an unguarded touch. Focus on this._

_And if Suoh wakes, a minute or ten or twenty later—he knows better than to give sign of it._

_A night like the rest:_

_Dark room and closed eyes. He should be used to this—what it takes them to touch, to hold onto whatever they’ve put together._

_At least his hands are bare. At least the marks they leave will be—_

_His breath hitches—but with his eyes shut who can tell what kind of expression it is. It just looks like pain. Always, pain._

_No way to love someone._

_“Look at me.”_

_“I–”_

_“Reisi.” Hasn’t said it enough for it to stop feeling forbidden, but that’s how it earns him a sliver of violet in the dark. “I’m not going anywhere.”_

_He can see when he’ll do it, when his eyes start to draw down—maybe it’s too rough, to fix his hand along the pale tremor of his throat, his thumb a bruise beneath his chin._

_“Don’t.”_

_The sigh moves against the cup of his palm. “It is still there, Suoh. I cannot forget that.”_

_Neither can he—sin sewn onto his skin, and nobody to blame but some half-filmed memory of a throwaway life. But that person’s dead. Dead, and he’s the only one Munakata seems to see._

_Shit._

_He rocks back on his knees, keeps the one hand set where it is. His other finds the thin wrist, feels the pulse hammering like it wants to burst through the skin. Maybe he can guess, guess where he draws it, where he lets it rest._

_The core of his mark, right over the heart. The flinch rocks through his whole body. He feels nails bite into his chest._

_“Suoh.” Like a curse in his mouth. “Suoh, let—”_

_“I’m right here.” If he could, he’d will thunder through him—enough for him to feel, to know. “We’re right here. Nowhere else. Nothing else.”_

_Sometimes it works. Sometimes the hand will go soft against him, lulled by the unmistakable evidence of a heartbeat. Sometimes the eyes will stay locked on his._

_Sometimes, they’ll move together, into some kind of forgetting._

_And, sometimes, they won’t._

_You can’t track what it takes, how the pieces come together like the puzzles on Reisi’s desktop. Only that it takes time, and trial, and a certain amount of blind determination in which they find themselves evenly matched._

_“Could call it destined,” Izumo says, after a time. Mikoto’s out of the house, and Munakata’s not answering Seri-chan’s messages. They can draw their own conclusions._

_Seri sighs, puts her phone down on the coffee table and rearranges the sprawl of Izumo’s limbs to better accommodate her. At times, she wishes her soulmate was less angular. “And yet no evidence of a shift. How long before we just stop hoping for the best and start—”_

_She cuts herself off. Izumo knows that she’s glaring at some point in the room, trying to adjust her inherent practicality with her loyalty. He thumbs the volume down a touch. “Pretty sure our job is to keep believing as long as they do, Seri-chan.”_

_He won’t pile his doubts on top of hers. But he’s always been the more optimistic one and, after a time, she softens into him._

_“Well, we’ll see what happens.”_

_And they wait._

_And the time passes. And the marks do not change. But there are new pictures on Totsuka’s moodboards—bonfires and beaches and volunteer events. Fushimi can be coaxed to stay in a few. Awashima suffers Kusanagi’s affection more readily than before—hands held, arms locked around waists and shoulders, lips pressed to foreheads and cheeks. Mouth is still a no, but the photographer holds out hope._

_Munakata is still a rare subject, and Suoh is more often around others than he is around him. But when one is in frame, you know where to find the other—_

_There, by his side._

_And that, too, does not change._

_And perhaps someday—_

It is not a particularly noteworthy day. No graduation, no dire circumstance, no sudden event. It is a morning like any other, when Reisi opens his eyes well before his alarm sounds. And there, blurry in soft sunlight, are his hands.

His bloodless hands.

He starts up. Suoh rolls over beside him, settles back to sleep. For a moment, he entertains the idea of a waking dream—but he has never been anything but cognizant of the varying states of his mind. This, then, is—

It takes him some time to reach for his glasses—irrational, the fear that this vision will vanish as soon as it is out of sight. Regardless, he must be sure. So he scours about the side table, reminding himself, again, to never allow Suoh the responsibility of putting them away as he _never—_ ah, there they are. One practiced motion, same an any other day, to flick them open and put them on. Then, steeling himself, he looks again.

His hands. His mark.

It is gone.

No, not gone. Closer study sees the vaguest blush of color, a pale scatter where the red used to be.  _Sakura_ come to mind—the viewing party they’d had not so long ago. He’d not been able to touch them, then. Had they perhaps understood?

_My, what an unconventional train of thought._

Laughter bubbles up from somewhere, unbidden. He has to bite it down, shifting his hands into a better light. There he can make out one faint trace of red, taking the shape of a scar wrapped around his ring finger. _How utterly romantic—_ the musing wears Fushimi-kun’s deadpan tone. _All you need now is to match._

_Match._

It says much about Suoh Mikoto, that his only reaction to being roughly pulled over on his back and straddled is to throw an arm up to shield his eyes and mutter, “Christ, Munakata, when I said initiative I meant not at the ass-crack of dawn—”

And then his awareness arrives, in time to note the unnatural catch in Reisi’s throat. He opens his eyes, sees him braced above him—looking where he hardly dares. “What is it?”

“Your mark.” His voice crumbles around the syllables; he is not quite sure he can manage more.

Suoh says nothing. Just reaches up, angles Reisi’s chin to capture some kind of reflection on his lenses. A difficult task, because for once, Reisi does not wish to look away. Because, for once, he does not have to.

A bloom instead of a spill, blending into the color on the hands that linger half-believing over the span of it. The wound is a faint stain, like a stamen pressed between thin paper—he still shudders to touch it, knowing what it was, what he’d made it to be. But there is no resounding horror, no nausea locking him into his skin.

He can—bear it.

“Reisi,” is all the warning he receives, before Suoh surges up, before Suoh’s lips are on his own. Their teeth knock together, and he knows he’s going to bruise, but—

“Mikoto,” he murmurs, rushing out like a breath he'd held for years.

It is a promise. It is not easy, and it is hardly over—wounds that traverse lifetimes are not undone in the span of months, that much he knows. But some part of him has given in to hope.

Some part of him remembers—after that winter, there was spring.

And here, he will not face it alone.

_I promise._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been kicking this idea around for a good while, so I'm glad I finally pulled it out. I've got MikoRei week and all the wonderful authors who contributed to thank for it :)
> 
> As always, thank you for reading <3


End file.
